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Statins may not be appropriate for all people with high cholesterol

Category: Heart Health and Cholesterol

Millions of people in the U.S. have received unhealthy cholesterol test results, which puts them at risk for a heart attack or stroke. Many of these individuals are given a prescription for statin medications, but one expert thinks this should not necessarily be the automatic treatment for all patients with high cholesterol.

Dr. Glenn Braunstein, the chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedars Sinai, wrote in the Huffington Post that statins do have a proven history of lowering cholesterol. However, recent Food and Drug Administration warnings indicate that they may carry a greater risk for side effects than previously thought.

The FDA statement indicated that evidence suggests that statins may be tied to an increased risk of diabetes and memory loss. This is a pretty serious revision of statins' warning labels, as it was previously assumed that the medications carried a very low risk of side effects.

A recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics indicated that 50 percent of men between the ages of 65 and 74, and 36 percent of women of this age, took statin medications between 2005 and 2008.